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Simon Jones (actor)
Simon Jones (born 27 July 1950) is an English actor. He portrayed Arthur Dent, protagonist of Douglas Adams' '' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' on radio in 1978 and again on television in 1981. Jones also appeared in the film '' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (2005) in a cameo role. He also played the role of Donald Shellhammer in '' Miracle on 34th Street'' (1994), appeared in '' Brideshead Revisited'' as Lord Brideshead, and as King George V in the film '' Downton Abbey''. Career Jones appeared in various television series, including '' Brideshead Revisited'' (in which he played the Earl of Brideshead, or 'Bridey', heir to the Marquess of Marchmain), and the second series of '' Blackadder'' (playing Sir Walter Raleigh). His films have included '' Club Paradise'', '' Privates on Parade'', '' Miracle on 34th Street'' and ''The Devil's Own''. Jones studied at King's College, Taunton, before going up to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he was a member of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charlton Park, Wiltshire
Charlton Park is a country house and estate in Wiltshire, England, northeast of the town of Malmesbury. Charlton Park House is a Grade I listed building and a leading example of the prodigy house. Malmesbury Abbey held Charlton manor from before 1086 until the Dissolution. The house was begun in the 1560s by Henry Knyvet, whose wife Elizabeth Stumpe had inherited the manor. In 1598 the manor passed to their daughter Catherine, wife of Thomas Howard, who was created Earl of Suffolk in 1603, and the estate continues to be the seat of the earls. Enlargement and alteration of the house, including the addition of the second floor and stair turrets, was completed in 1607. John Dryden wrote ''Annus Mirabilis'' while staying at the house in 1667. Major alterations were made in the 1770s by Matthew Brettingham the Younger for Henry Howard, 12th Earl of Suffolk, with the rebuilding of the south front, additional stair turrets, and the roofing-over of the central courtyard to make a l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh (; – 29 October 1618) was an English statesman, soldier, writer and explorer. One of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era, he played a leading part in English colonisation of North America, suppressed rebellion in Ireland, helped defend England against the Spanish Armada and held political positions under Elizabeth I. Raleigh was born to a Protestant family in Devon, the son of Walter Raleigh and Catherine Champernowne. He was the younger half-brother of Sir Humphrey Gilbert and a cousin of Sir Richard Grenville. Little is known of his early life, though in his late teens he spent some time in France taking part in the religious civil wars. In his 20s he took part in the suppression of rebellion in the colonisation of Ireland; he also participated in the siege of Smerwick. Later, he became a landlord of property in Ireland and mayor of Youghal in East Munster, where his house still stands in Myrtle Grove. He rose rapidly in the favour o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
12 Monkeys
''12 Monkeys'' is a 1995 American science fiction film directed by Terry Gilliam, inspired by Chris Marker's 1962 short film '' La Jetée'', starring Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, and Brad Pitt, with Christopher Plummer and David Morse in supporting roles. After Universal Studios acquired the rights to remake ''La Jetée'' as a full-length film, David and Janet Peoples were hired to write the script. Under Gilliam's direction, Universal granted the filmmakers a $29.5 million budget, and filming lasted from February to May 1995. The film was shot mostly in Philadelphia and Baltimore, where the story was set. The film was released to critical praise and grossed $168.8 million worldwide. Pitt was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and he won a Golden Globe Award for his performance. The film also won and was nominated for various categories at the Saturn Awards. Plot A deadly virus, released in 1996, wipes out almost all of humanity, forcing su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brazil (1985 Film)
''Brazil'' is a 1985 dystopian black comedy film directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard. The film stars Jonathan Pryce and features Robert De Niro, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins, and Ian Holm. The film centres on Sam Lowry, a low-ranking bureaucrat trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a mind-numbing job and living in a small apartment, set in a dystopian world in which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained (and rather whimsical) machines. ''Brazil''s satire of technocracy, bureaucracy, hyper-surveillance, corporatism and state capitalism is reminiscent of George Orwell's 1949 novel '' Nineteen Eighty-Four'' and has been called Kafkaesque and absurdist. Sarah Street's ''British National Cinema'' (1997) describes the film as a "fantasy/satire on bureaucratic society", and John Scalzi's ''Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies'' (2005) describes it as a "dystopia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Palin
Sir Michael Edward Palin (; born 5 May 1943) is an English actor, comedian, writer, television presenter, and public speaker. He was a member of the Monty Python comedy group. Since 1980, he has made a number of travel documentaries. Palin wrote most of his comedic material with fellow Python member Terry Jones. Before Monty Python, they had worked on other shows including the ''Ken Dodd Show'', '' The Frost Report'', and '' Do Not Adjust Your Set''. Palin appeared in some of the most famous Python sketches, including " Argument Clinic", " Dead Parrot sketch", " The Lumberjack Song", " The Spanish Inquisition", "Bicycle Repair Man" and "The Fish-Slapping Dance". He also regularly played a Gumby. Palin continued to work with Jones away from Python, co-writing '' Ripping Yarns''. He has also appeared in several films directed by fellow Python Terry Gilliam and made notable appearances in other films such as ''A Fish Called Wanda'' (1988), for which he won the BAFTA Award for B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Friends
''American Friends'' is a 1991 British film starring Michael Palin. It was written by Palin and its director, Tristram Powell. Plot Palin plays Francis Ashby, a senior Oxford professor on holiday in the Swiss Alps in 1861. There he meets the American Caroline Hartley (Connie Booth) and her 18-year-old ward Elinor (Trini Alvarado). Ashby is drawn to them both, particularly Elinor, but is rather surprised when they arrive in Oxford and rent a house. Women are not allowed in the college, nor are fellows allowed to marry, which puts him in an embarrassing situation. Ashby's rival for the post of college president, Oliver Syme (Alfred Molina), takes full advantage of this to try to discredit Ashby. Inspiration The plot was based on a real-life incident involving Palin's great-grandfather, Edward Palin. Cast * Michael Palin - Rev. Francis Ashby * Trini Alvarado - Elinor Hartley * Connie Booth - Caroline Hartley * Alfred Molina - Oliver Syme * Bryan Pringle - Haskell * Fred Pearson ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Cleese
John Marwood Cleese ( ; born 27 October 1939) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. Emerging from the Cambridge Footlights in the 1960s, he first achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on '' The Frost Report''. In the late 1960s, he co-founded Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the sketch show ''Monty Python's Flying Circus.'' Along with his Python co-stars Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Graham Chapman, Cleese starred in Monty Python films, which include ''Monty Python and the Holy Grail'' (1975), '' Life of Brian'' (1979) and '' The Meaning of Life'' (1983). In the mid-1970s, Cleese and first wife Connie Booth co-wrote the sitcom '' Fawlty Towers'', in which he starred as hotel owner Basil Fawlty, for which he won the 1980 British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance. In 2000 the show topped the British Film Institute's list of the 100 Greate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monty Python
Monty Python (also collectively known as the Pythons) were a British comedy troupe who created the sketch comedy television show ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'', which first aired on the BBC in 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series. The Python phenomenon developed from the television series into something larger in scope and influence, including touring stage shows, films, albums, books and musicals. The Pythons' influence on comedy has been compared to the Beatles' influence on music. Regarded as an enduring icon of 1970s pop culture, their sketch show has been referred to as being "an important moment in the evolution of television comedy". Broadcast by the BBC between 1969 and 1974, ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' was conceived, written and performed by its members Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. Loosely structured as a sketch show, but with an innovative stream-of-consciousness approach aided b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grim Reaper
Death is frequently imagined as a personified force. In some mythologies, a character known as the Grim Reaper (usually depicted as a berobed skeleton wielding a scythe) causes the victim's death by coming to collect that person's soul. Other beliefs hold that the Spectre of Death is only a psychopomp, serving to sever the last ties between the soul and the body, and to guide the deceased to the afterlife, without having any control over when or how the victim dies. Death is most often personified in male form, although in certain cultures Death is perceived as female (for instance, Marzanna in Slavic mythology, or Santa Muerte in Mexico). By region Americas Latin America As is the case in many Romance languages (including French, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian), the Spanish word for death, ''muerte,'' is a feminine noun. As such, it is common in Spanish-speaking cultures to personify death as a female figure. In Aztec mythology, Mictecacihuatl is the "Queen of Mict ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life
''Monty Python's The Meaning of Life'', also known simply as ''The Meaning of Life'', is a 1983 British musical sketch comedy film written and performed by the Monty Python troupe, directed by Terry Jones. ''The Meaning of Life'' was the last feature film to star all six Python members before the death of Graham Chapman in 1989. Unlike ''Holy Grail'' and '' Life of Brian'', the film's two predecessors, which each told a single, more-or-less coherent story, ''The Meaning of Life'' returned to the sketch format of the troupe's original television series and their first film from twelve years earlier, '' And Now for Something Completely Different'', loosely structured as a series of comic sketches about the various stages of life. It was accompanied by the short film ''The Crimson Permanent Assurance''. Released on 23 June 1983 in the United Kingdom, ''The Meaning of Life'' was not as acclaimed as its predecessors, but was still well received critically and was a minor box offic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Out Of The Trees
''Out of the Trees'' is a 1975 television sketch show pilot written by Graham Chapman, Douglas Adams and Bernard McKenna that was broadcast on BBC 2 in 1976. The show shared some of the stream-of-consciousness style of '' Monty Python's Flying Circus'', of which Chapman was a member. Actors included Mark Wing-Davey and Simon Jones. The concept of the show was, according to Chapman, to follow the exploits of two modern-day linguists who would travel around a Britain gripped in rapid decline. The linguists would comment upon the origins of a word or phrase, which would then be the genesis of a sketch. Although two scripts were written (the second a collaboration between Chapman and David Yallop), only one episode was ever filmed. It was broadcast only once by the BBC, with little promotion, at 10pm on Saturday 10 January 1976 opposite ''Match of the Day'', and so was seen by relatively few people. It was reported in 2005, by a representative posting on the forum at the archive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Footlights
Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club, commonly referred to simply as the Footlights, is an amateur theatrical club in Cambridge, England, founded in 1883 and run by the students of Cambridge University. History Footlights' inaugural performance took place in June 1883. For some months before the name "Footlights" was chosen, the group had performed to local audiences in the Cambridge area (once, with a cricket match included, at the "pauper lunatic asylum"). They wished to go wider than the University Amateur Dramatic Club (ADC), founded in 1855, with its membership drawn largely from Trinity College, and its theatre seating only 100. They were to perform every May Week at the Theatre Royal, Barnwell, Cambridge, the shows soon open to the public. A local paper commended the club's appeal to the "general public, the many different classes of which life in Cambridge is made up". The club grew in prominence in the 1960s as a hotbed of comedy and satire, and established ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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